This is a simple guide that explains what it means if your cell phone is unlocked and, how you can tell if it is, as well as some suggestions on how to get your phone unlocked. Simply put, if your cell phone is unlocked it can be used with more than one wireless carrier like T Mobile and Cingular. For a more detailed explanation read on. If you find this guide helpful, please help others find it by clicking the “Yes” in the blue title bar below.
I will start with what is means to be locked. Many years ago, the wireless carriers such as AT&T and others started a marketing strategy of paying for some of or all of the cost of a new cell phone if the customer would commit to a one or two year contract to use their wireless service. The wireless carriers did not want to pay for the phone and later have it used with another carrier, so they got the cell phone manufactures to design the phone to be locked to just their service. For example, if AT&T paid for the phone, AT&T would lock it so that it could only be used on AT&T and not T Mobile. This lock is called by several names including “Sub Lock” or “SPC Lock” or “Sim Lock”.
Now that you know why the cell phones are locked, I will discuss how to tell if your phone is locked or unlocked. First, you must determine if your phone is a GSM phone or a CDMA phone. This is easy to tell, if the phone uses a sim card (a small piece of plastic that you put in the phone, see picture below), it is GSM, if it doesn’t, it is CDMA. The US carriers that are GSM are Cingular and T Mobile. The CDMA carriers are Verizon, US Cellular, Alltel, Qwest, and Sprint PCS. Both CDMA and GSM phones are generally locked, however, only unlocked GSM phones can be easily switched from one carrier to another. I will address each seperately.
Sim Card Sim Card Inserted
GSM Carriers (Cingular and T Mobile are the biggest two). When a GSM phone is unlocked, it will work with any active sim card. So you can put an active T Mobile card or and active Cingular card and the phone will make a call. Now some features of the phone may not work, like the internet browser if the phone is not programmed to the particular carrier, nevertheless, you can make calls.
CDMA is a little different. The cell phone does not use a small sim card and the phone must be programmed to another carrier to work which generally requires that the phone be hooked to a computer that has special service software to program the phone. If you don’t have the software, and it is not readily available, CDMA phones are, for all practical purposes, locked to the carrier they are programmed to.
How can I unlock my cell phone? You can find companies that unlock cell phones on eBay and on the internet. Some companies are able to unlock the phones remotely, meaning if you send them the imei number on the phone, they send you a code to unlock the phone, others require you to send them the phone. Each model is different, so you will have to search a little. Charges range from $5.00 to $20.00 depending on the model of the phone and which company you go to.
If you are purchasing a phone on eBay, look for one that is already unlocked. I hope you found this guide helpful, if so, please click yes below. Also, check out all the phones that I offer on eBay, I can unlock almost every phone made and I generally unlock them before I sell them. If you want to learn even more about unlocking see my guide “After Unlocked Cell Phones: What it Means to be Unlocked”. Thanks for reading.
Wi-Fi_Toys_15WirelessProjectsforHomeOffice_Entertainment The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development Mobile and Wireless Communication Networks Macworld iPhone Superguide Addison.Wesley.iPhone.Developers.Cookbook.2nd.Edition.Nov.2009 Taking Youri Phone to the Max
Is it enough to get up and go to work every day for the rest of our lives? To make more money and buy more stuff? Does that give enough meaning in our lives so that we can be fully satisfied?
We Americans have so much weath outside and it has cost us so much. A top 10 issue that couples across America fight about is money. People are so concerned with money. Don’t get me wrong, I am as concerned as the next person about making the bills. But do we think about the importance of other types of value? Of higher values like inner satisfaction, peace, wisdom and forgiveness? And are we concerned with developing and achieving those values on a daily basis? I don’t know. But, from the way I see Americans living it doesn’t look like it.
So I ask, what is the point? We go to school for years and years with the idea of getting a good job and having a good career. What use is a life that exists on the basis of achieving a means to an end? You go to school, you get a good job, you buy a car and a house, you get married, you have kids . . . then what? Is that it? Is that enough to make you happy with this life? Or is there something more? Is there a desire within us that we can achieve something greater than just material weath? For the sake of our future generations (and the current ones) I certainly hope so. No amount of stuff is going to create lasting happiness in the American People.
Are we achieving happiness as a nation?
According to the National Institue of Mental Health “about 1 in 4 [American] adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.” I am not convinced that the American people actually know what happiness is or how to achieve it. Sure, one could argue that happiness is different for every person, but I don’t buy it.
In order to achieve lasting happiness one has to have a state of inner balance. The world outside is ever changing and if your happiness is tied to the outside (material) world, your happiness will surely be short lived. However, with some effort, the world within each of us can be steadied; and a lasting happiness can be built on that framework. Imagine having the power to face the challenges of life without being robbed of your happiness. No need for anger, frustration, sorrow . . . just peace and the enjoyment of each moment. It is possible.
On Liberty
We are blessed in America that we can exercise freedom of choice without ridicule. But freedom is a mixed blessing. We can easily make choices that encourage happiness or self-destruction. America is just over 230 years old; in relative terms, our country is a baby. And thus we lack the moral traditions that prevent us from regularly making stupid decisions. In saying moral traditions I mean wisdom, innocence, humility, and discretion. I long for a day when the American people are empowered with the strength to know themselves and to experience the complete liberty of the Spirit.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in Harmony.”
-Mohandas K. Gandhi
Anybody can think the thought, talk the talk, but can they walk the walk?
Meditation is the answer . . . happiness is the question.
I like the way Matthew Henry explains this verses, so I will simply quote him:
It is not new for a minister to meet with unkind returns for good-will to a people, and diligent and successful services among them. To the cavils of some, the apostle answers, so as to set forth himself as an example of self-denial, for the good of others. He had a right to marry as well as other apostles, and to claim what was needful for his wife, and his children if he had any, from the churches, without labouring with his own hands to get it. Those who seek to do our souls good, should have food provided for them. But he renounced his right, rather than hinder his success by claiming it. It is the people’s duty to maintain their minister. He may wave his right, as Paul did; but those transgress a precept of Christ, who deny or withhold due support. (Matthew Henry’s Commentary)
Section 2: Serving All Men (vv. 19-23)
The latter part of verse 22 basically sums up this entire section:
I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
I kind of want to shy away from quoting other people as often as I do, but I found a John Piper sermon that deals with these verses, and there is a part of it that I would like to share.
In freedom, for love’s sake, you try to overcome unnecessary, alienating differences that cut you off from unbelievers. In freedom, for love’s sake, you learn the Maninka language and translate the Bible. In freedom, for love’s sake, you eat dinner together the way they eat dinner. In freedom, for love’s sake, you dress pretty much like the middle class American natives. In freedom, for love’s sake, you get into their politics and their sports and their businesses.
And all the while you keep a vigilant watch over your heart to see if you are in the law of Christ. Here are two tests of how you are doing in this delicate balancing act. I close with these:
Are you becoming more worldly minded than they are becoming spiritually minded? If so, you have probably crossed the line of the law of Christ. Christ does not call you to lose your holiness, but to gain theirs.
Is your passion for winning your friends and family growing, or is it shrinking as you become all things to them? If it is shrinking, then you are not in the law of Christ at that point.
Here is the sum of the matter: Christ died to set us free. Free from the wrath of God, and free from the loveless limits of the law. Free for love and eternal life. Are we using our freedom to make this good news plain? Or are we so separatistic that we have no connection with unbelievers; or are we so worldly they don’t know we have anything radically different to offer? (“Becoming All Things to All Men to Save Some”)
I think that last sentence is one that we really have to think about. Christians tend to either be on the separatistic side of the spectrum or on the way opposite side of the spectrum, which is worldliness. We either have our own little “Christian bubbles,” where we only associate with Christians and participate in Christian things, or we blend in so much with the world that no one can tell that there is something different about us. I think I fall more into the separatistic side of the spectrum. It is easy for me to fall into the “I read and pray everyday, listen to sermons, wear Christian T-shirts, and only listen to Christian music, so I’m a good Christian” mindset. Are those things good? Yes, definitely. However, being a Christian is so much more than that. We are called to “go… and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19). We cannot do that if we stay in our “Christian bubble.” We have to go out and interact with the lost, or else we will not reach them, as we are called to do. We have to learn about those we are called to reach, so that we will most effectively be able to reach them. Really for me, I just need to go out and reach the lost period, as that is something that I have never done.
Section 3: Striving for a Crown (vv. 24-27)
As a sports fan, I really like and relate to these verses. I will go verse-by-verse explaining them.
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. (v. 24)
The runner who wins the race is going to be the one who trained arduously and gave every last ounce of effort during the race. The winner does not run half-heartedly, but runs with all the strength and energy that he or she has. To connect this to the Christian walk, we are to run hard, so to speak, and give it everything we have. There is so room for running a half-hearted lazy race. If we run in such a way, we might not finish the race and, therefore, not receive the prize—eternal life.
Let’s make it clear here that it is not our “running of the race” that saves us. If we do not finish the race, it is proof that we were never saved to begin with. Our “running zealously” is the proof that we are saved. Works do not save (Ephesians 2:8-9), but faith without works is dead (James 2:20). We are saved by faith, and our works prove that our faith is authentic.
And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. (v. 25)
We see here the importance of obtaining the prize, and again, how to obtain it. Runners compete for a prize that is perishable, but we “compete” for a prize that will never perish. How should we live in order to obtain this crown? With self-control. Again I will refer to a John Piper sermon that I found:
What Paul is saying here is that there are impulses that we have to control if we are going to run like a winner and receive the crown of righteousness. The impulses we have to control are the impulses to do things that will weaken our zeal for God: our earnestness in prayer, our hunger for Scripture, our longing to love, our passion for holiness.
The serious athlete doesn’t ask about how to just get by in his training. He asks about what will bring about maximum performance. So the mature Christian asks, what will make me most useful for the kingdom? What will stir up my zeal for God most? What will intensify my earnestness in prayer? What will trigger more hunger for God’s Word? What will strengthen my longing to love? What will fan the flames of my passion for holiness?
And then the Christian takes note of all the impulses and all the habits and practices of his life that weaken his zeal for God and his joy of faith, and he sets about to take control of them and put them out of his life. (“Olympic Spirituality, Part 2″)
And now onto verses 26 and 27, which show the severity of this self-control:
26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
In the interest of time, I will continue to quote from “Olympic Spirituality, Part 2″:
Here he could hardly be more out of sync with contemporary American life. ” . . . I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I buffet my body and make it my slave.” The body is not evil in itself. God created it. And he will raise it from the dead to exist forever. But the body is the base of operations for sin, and sin uses it to give rise to many impulses that are destructive to spiritual life.
Therefore Paul says that when he exercises self-control, it is like boxing, and the enemy to be struck is the body, and when he swings, he does not miss and hit the air. He connects, and pommels his body, and makes it his slave. He will not be mastered by the appetites and impulses and cravings and lethargy of the body. “The body is for the Lord” (1 Corinthians 6:13). So Paul means to make his body serve the glory of the Lord.
This is exactly the spirit of Jesus when he said, If your eye leads you to sin, pluck it out, or if your hand leads you to sin, cut it off. For it’s better to enter eternal life blind in one eye and maimed in one hand than to go to hell with both (Matthew 5:29–30). Paul said, It’s better to beat my body into submission than to be disqualified from the race.
Now gouging out the eye does not overcome lust, and cutting off the hand does not conquer theft or battery. The point is: fight these impulses with that kind of seriousness. Both Jesus and Paul mean: there are impulses that must be put to death. And the fight to put them to death is like a boxing match with direct blows to the face.
I will conclude by recommending the second sermon I quoted (I do not know about the first, as I barely looked at it), as the parts that I read were really good, and I like the ending of the sermon. Here is the link again: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByScripture/19/803_Olympic_Spirituality_Part_2/
Student Action Committee (SAC) Protest For Missing Persons
Schedule:
Saturday, 30th January 2010,
3:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Liberty Roundabout, Lahore
“They disappear without a trace. Their families exist in torturous limbo. They lay awake wondering about their loved ones’ whereabouts and condition. Terrifying thoughts come to their minds evoking tears and a jolt to their heart. Their meaning of life altered. Forever”
Since the start of the US led war on terror in 2001 hundreds of people have been illegally picked up from Pakistan. Amnesty International has stated that Pakistan has detained hundreds of alleged terror suspects without legal processes. It has been speculated that some were tortured or otherwise ill-treated, some were sold to the US military and others vanished without a trace. Some of the missing were Al-Qaeda suspects but others included innocent women and children. The families of missing persons in Pakistan have been running exhaustively in search of justice and information about their loved ones. They see no light at the end of the tunnel.
For too long us Pakistanis have remained silent as things around us spiral out of control. If you want to make a difference, it is time to stand up, be heard and be counted, for history will never forgive us for being indifferent to the plight of our people.
Join us to protest against the forced abductions of the citizens of Pakistan and demand their immediate return to the country.
‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter’
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Because once I start blathering on about something, I just can’t seem to stop.
——
Glenn Greenwald won’t stop, either; this is likely due to the apparent circumstance that his commenters won’t (a) read what he wrote or (b) stop bothering him with their reactions to what they think he wrote. We have the following:
Follow-up on the Citizens United case (Salon.com)
Greenwald begins with delightful asperity:
I say [that disagreement with this post is] to be expected because, in our political discourse, it’s virtually always the case that opinions about court rulings perfectly coincide with opinions about the policy whose constitutionality is being adjudicated (e.g., those who favor same-sex marriage on policy grounds cheer court rulings that such marriages are constitutionally compelled, while those who oppose them on policy grounds object to those court rulings, etc. etc.). When a court invalidates Law X or Government Action Y on constitutional grounds, it’s always so striking how one’s views about the validity of the court’s ruling track one’s beliefs about the desirability of Law X/Action Y on policy grounds (e.g., “I like Law X and disagree with the Court’s ruling declaring Law X unconstitutional” or “I dislike Law X and agree with the Court’s striking down Law X”).
This is what comes of focusing on outcomes rather than processes. Objective constraints like the Constitutionality of a law become mere reflections of one’s own opinion, at least to oneself. (The less depressing thing about the Constitution is that it obstructs some good from being done; the more depressing thing about the Constitution is that we fixate upon that good while ignoring the overwhelming evil that it also obstructs. If only we didn’t have that damn rag from 1787, we could make the trains run on time!)
Greenwald goes on to note that, while many of the internet’s objections to Citizens United stem from the idea that “money isn’t speech” (upon which more anon) and/or that corporations are specially exempted from the First Amendment, none of the Supreme Court justices entertained either position. I’ll use his words to segue:
The fact that all nine Justices reject a certain proposition does not, of course, prove that it’s wrong. But those who argue that (1) corporations have no First Amendment rights and/or (2) restrictions on money cannot violate the free speech clause should stop pretending that the 4 dissenting Justices agreed with you. They didn’t. None of the 9 Justices made those arguments.
To the contrary, the entire dissent — while arguing that corporations have fewer First Amendment protections than individuals — is grounded in the premise that corporations do have First Amendment free speech rights and that restrictions on the expenditure of money do burden those rights, but those free speech rights can be restricted when there’s a “compelling state interest.”
(Emphasis in the original.)
“Compelling state interest” is the sort of phrase that makes my eyes bleed. It’s a direct, powerful, and frightening phrase: it emphasizes the fact that the state has interests which are utterly inimical — and often specifically harmful — to the people over whom that state purports to rule. It reminds me of the gallows wisdom that, by definition, most participants in a gang rape enjoyed it and would do it again. But let’s continue before I write something that’ll get me arrested in this land of Human Rights Commissions:
Those who want to restrict free speech always argue that there’s a compelling reason to do so (“we must ban the Communist Party because they pose a danger to the country”; “we must ban hate speech because it sparks violence and causes a climate of intimidation”; “we must ban radical Muslim websites because they provoke Terrorism”). One can have reasonable debates over the “compelling interest” question as a constitutional matter — and, as I said yesterday, I’m deeply ambivalent about the Citizens United case because that’s a hard question and I do think corporate influence is one of the greatest threats we face — but, ultimately, it’s because I don’t believe that restrictions on political speech and opinions (as opposed to other kinds of statements) can ever be justified that I agree with the majority’s ruling.
Don’t make me quote Heinlein at you, Greenwald commenters. Okay, you asked for it:
“When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”
—Robert A. Heinlein, If This Goes On, 1940
But beyond this notion of “special” rights and “compelling” State interests is the disgusting insinuation that the Supreme Court is mostly concerned with ridiculous technicalities, persisting in narrow and literal-minded interpretations of the Constitution with no concern for the real problems facing our country — problems which must be dealt with expediently and forcefully.
Wait, are we talking about terr’ists or corpuh-ayshuns?
One of the principal accusations made over the last eight years from Bush followers — directed at those like Turley and the ACLU who objected to Bush terrorism policies on legal and Constitutional grounds — is that they were caught up in “legalisms,” absolutism and dogmatic purity at the expense of addressing a “real-world” crisis: the threat of Terrorism. “People are trying to KILL US and you’re worried about due process.” Those same name-calling accusations were made frequently by commenters last night about those who think the First Amendment actually means what it says and can’t be violated in the name of good results (“your absolutism and legalistic purity ignores the real-world problem of corporate influence”).
And y’know what? It’s still a bogus argument, fuckers, whether you do it or the Bushies do it. Listen up, you primitive screwheads: the primary threat faced by any people is not teh ebil terr’ists, nor is it teh ebil corpuh-ayshuns: it is, as the Founding Fathers discovered back around that apparently-forgotten war near the end of the Eighteenth Century, their own government. The Constitution does not exist to keep us safe from each other. The Constitution does not exist to keep us safe from other nations. The Constitution does not exist to tell us how to pee. The Constitution exists to protect us from our own government, because our own government is the force with the most guns brought to bear upon us.
Nineteenth-century slaveholders were terrified of an armed uprising from their unjustly-indentured servants, and with good reason. So too should our governments be terrified of us.
I get a bit vicious when I’m angry.
——
Glenn Greenwald gets quite vicious when he’s angry. Not wrong, but vicious; and Barry Goldwater (and your humble blogger) would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice:
Letters: “What the Supreme Court got right” (Salon.com)
Anyone who believes that ["money isn't speech, it's property"] would have to say that there’s no First Amendment problem with any law that restricts the spending of money for political purposes, such as:”It shall be illegal for anyone to spend money to criticize laws enacted by the Congress; all citizens shall still be free to express their views on such laws, provided no money is spent;” or
“It shall be illegal for anyone to spend money advocating Constitutional rights for accused terrorists; all citizens shall still be free to express their views on such matters, provided no money is spent”; or
“It shall be illegal for anyone to spend money promoting a candidate not registered with either the Democratic or Republican Party; all citizens shall still be free to advocate for such candidates, provided no money is spent.”
Anyone who actually believes that “money is not speech” would have to believe that such laws are necessarily permitted by the First Amendment (since they merely restrict the expenditure of money, which is not speech).
Do you actually believe that? I don’t even find that argument sufficiently coherent to warrant much discussion.
It would be like saying: “No person shall be permitted to use a megaphone or television outlet to advocate liberal views — there’s no First Amendment problem: megaphones and television outlets are just ‘property, not speech’.”
(Emphasis added.)
These examples are almost absurdly germane to Ilya Somin’s post on corporate and property rights, which ameliorates my understanding of corporate rights in general: it now seems to me that “the rights of corporations”, far from being “new, excessive” rights, are simply more specific codifications of the rights of individuals (who, through free association, compose a corporation). You know, the way gay marriage rights are simply new codifications of existing individual rights rather than “new, special” rights. I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, since I’m embarrassingly ignorant in the field of corporate law and judicial precedents for the rights of corporations; but corporate law as short-hand for the rights of individuals in aggregate fills in a lot of gaps for me, and I’m at least clever enough to apply Ockham’s Razor to the matter.
——
Let’s now take a moment to examine Kevin Drum’s response to Glenn Greenwald’s first post:
Money in politics (Mother Jones)
Mr. Drum begins with a tedious error:
But there’s a difference here: in the case of, say, Brown vs. Board of Education, the pernicious effects of Plessy over the previous half century were plain. In Citizens United, we had an equally plain view of the effects of previous restrictions on corporate campaign funding, and those effects were… negligible.
The frustration… it burns….
Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission is not about the fucking corporations!
Frankie fuck a fencepost; we’ve already established that corporations can spend as much goddamned money as they want to influence local, state, or national politics by way of existing means such as lobbying the thrice-damned pols directly. Dropping money on the campaign of someone who might get elected has got to be seen as a riskier venture, to be undertaken only as a last resort — and it’ s not as though they can’t buy the opinion of a New York Times editorial staffer. Fuck me sideways: Bush 43 bought the whole Iraq War for the mere promise of “access”; don’t tell me that someone with real money to offer a dying legacy-media franchise couldn’t have their way with the Grey Lady in any convenient back-seat or dark corner.
Okay, let’s get back to the part where Mr. Drum has a point:
Modern corporations are far more than [organized groups of people], and long precedent recognizes this by allowing them fewer speech rights than individuals. Fairly broad restrictions on advertising, for example, are both constitutional and widely accepted. Ditto for laws that prohibit corporate officers from discussing earnings forecasts during “quiet periods.” So it’s perfectly defensible to suggest that corporations might also have more restricted rights when it comes to campaign speech.
I’m going to provisionally disagree with the notion that corporations are somehow “special” relative to other groups of people organized to a common purpose, but the judicial-precedent point appears to stand just fine on its own. Corporations are permitted fewer rights than individuals. (Whether this is a good thing is perhaps the topic for another post.) So it’s entirely reasonable, following Mr. Drum’s reasoning, to assert that corporate rights are special… in the context of a First Amendment that deals with the rights of individuals. Why don’t we have a look at the First Amendment, anyway?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press would appear to be of a kind. No mention is made of individuals (as members of “the people” who might peaceably assemble and petition the &c.) until the clause after “freedom of speech”. If freedom of speech and freedom of the press are indistinguishable in the First Amendment, I don’t see how they’d be distinguishable in terms of corporate rights: following Mr. Drum’s argument, we might allow a New York Times editorialist publicly to endorse a candidate through s/h/its newspaper column, but forbid the Grey Lady herself from expressing an opinion. After all, corporations can’t be trusted.
Smile, it gets worse. Right at the end we encounter this peculiar dictum:
Exxon is not the Audubon Society and Google is not the NRA. There’s no reason we have to pretend otherwise.
Far be it for me to cast aspersion upon any of the players involved, but que hablo what the fucking fuck? It is not only invidious but utterly counterproductively reactionary to deride any group simply because they seek to profit for themselves. Coyote Blog does this one better than I:
When you say “Exxon is not the Audubon society,” I am not sure how? I am a stockholder of the first and a member of and contributor to the second. I have bought products from both. I have written both (well, actually I wrote Mobil once but it is the same now as Exxon) about their issue advocacy, each time with equally small effect. It is as difficult as a stockholder of Exxon to even get a disclosure of their issue advocacy and lobbying efforts as it is for Audubon (though I am smart enough to take a pretty good guess at both). Neither allows me, as a shareholder/member/contributor to vote on their advocacy/lobbying, either in terms of amount spent or direction. Each carry substantial influence in particular government realms.
But that’s not the line about which I intend to bitch most. That dubious honour falls to this throwaway:
I’m just enough of a First Amendment fundamentalist to believe that there are plausible arguments for allowing corporations to make political contributions; [...]
(Emphasis added.)
“First Amendment fundamentalist” is a particularly ugly turn of phrase. I might quote the rest of that Barry Goldwater bit: “Let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!“ Particularly in a realm where everyone concerned has admitted that shit-tons of money buys one (to a greater or lesser degree; we’ve established that government is a whore, we’re just haggling about its price) a great deal of influence over policy, couching one’s support for the First Amendment in the same sort of language with which one refers to those who seriously debate each other over locking their wives in the woodshed during menstruation catches me somewhat aslant.
The First Amendment has no “yeah, but” to it. It means precisely what it says, and this particular kerfuffle over moneyed influence over government serves merely to underscore its importance: that free speech must not be restricted, no matter who’s already bought influence and wants to protect it.
Blogger Seismic Shock, a Yorkshire-based student, received an alarming visit from local police late last year. Seismic, a Christian, had been heavily critical of Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer on his blog, alleging that Sizer associated with Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites.
On 29 November, he received a visit from local police, who advised him to remove certain posts from his blog. The police officers maintained that this was an “informal chat”, but the blogger, understandably intimidated, agreed to remove his original Blogger site, while maintaining his WordPress blog.
Index on Censorship has made numerous attempts to contact West Yorkshire Police in order to clarify a) under what authority the blogger was visited by police and b) what potential breach of law had been commited by the blogger that warranted such a visit.
So far, no explanation has been offered.
I’ll be watching this. I’ll also be backing my blog up in its entirety.
Times change. There was a time when we could look at Supreme Court Justices with great respect and admiration. They were people who had a high standard of right action, a commitment to the Constitution of the United States, with no bias favoring specific political parties or agendas. They supported ethical behavior and the ideals of democracy.
Not anymore. The Supreme Court has been corrupted by inferior elements.
As we wave goodbye to democracy and accept the fact that powerful corporations loyal to stockholders and money above integrity, liberty, fairness and decency are running our country, we are left with the sad fact that there is no one we can turn to for help.
Our country’s leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, are damaged goods. They are a collective body of wealthy liars and thieves with little interest in patriotism, democracy or justice except when they can use the words and symbols of these ideals to fool us into thinking they care about us.
As we’ve watched the descent of our country into immorality and decay, most of us seem to think it’s one party’s fault or the other. It’s not. It’s our fault.
It’s our fault for tolerating the lies. It’s our fault for not even knowing when we’re being lied to.
It’s our fault for placing people we have decided to trust for emotional reasons (because they have seduced us with their rhetoric and passion) on pedestals, and taking everything they say at face value as the gospel truth without caring to look at the evidence and discover the truth for ourselves.
It’s our fault for putting our faith in these people and institutions, accepting their inconsistencies, hypocrisies and outright lies and propaganda simply because we trust them, despite their being no real basis for the trust.
It’s out fault for not insisting that they be held accountable for the things they say and do.
It’s our fault for choosing to stop thinking for ourselves and allowing them to think for us.
Bottom line: The politicians and corporations have not sold us out. We have sold ourselves out. We have betrayed ourselves. We have failed this country. As a result of the choices we’ve made to give up our responsibility as caretakers of our liberty and democracy, we are now on a sinking ship.
So what can we learn from the Supreme Court? That it’s time to wake up, start thinking for ourselves, and begin a new policy of only electing people who tell the truth.
As soon as we catch anybody in a lie during their election campaigning, we decide they won’t get our vote and we let them know it.
It doesn’t matter who they are, how much they’ve accomplished, or how wonderful their reputation is, because truth be told: If someone lies to us one time we cannot trust that they won’t lie to us again. If we can’t trust them, we shouldn’t elect them to an office that is going to dramatically impact our lives and affect the well-being of our families.
If we do this, if we reject every political candidate we catch in a lie, big or small, over time we will most likely replace just about everyone currently holding office with honest people who say what they mean and will do what they say.
Martin Luther King once said, “A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”
He also said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
We are now officially the oppressed, living in a pseudo-democracy that has frightening fascist elements growing stronger everyday, as the recent Supreme Court decision demonstrates.
Only we, the people, can stem this tide over time.
Martin Luther King made reference to a dream that people “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
We must now apply this concept to the politicians we elect to public office, in the sense that we not judge them by the facade they have constructed about themselves but by the integrity of their being.
If we catch anybody in a lie on the campaign trail, they’re out. Case closed. On to the next guy until the politicians get the message that nothing less than honesty and ethical behavior will be tolerated.
There can be no other way. The lies must stop if this democracy is to survive and prosper.
So what can the Supreme Court and Martin Luther King teach us about relationships?
When we are in the courtship phase of a relationship, if we catch the one we’re courting in a lie, we bail out immediately, rather than look the other way and get entrenched in a relationship which will one day either fail and/or cause us great emotional suffering because the foundation of the relationship was flawed from the start.
When we have the courage to walk away from shiny objects that offer great promise but are actually composed of paper mache covered by glossy paint, we will spare ourselves a great deal of grief and give ourselves the opportunity to find real value and meaning in this very strange world we now inhabit.
